


The Adventures of Manman and Brainteaser

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, compulsory Lem joke, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil has the power to seduce men with a glance. Unfortunately, he is utterly and completely heterosexual. So what do you do with such a useless power?</p>
<p>You fight crime. Of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventures of Manman and Brainteaser

“Help! Help, that man stole my purse!”  
  
It was something right out of the panel of his favourite comic book issues. Sure, the old lady had purple hair instead of a matronly grey and it was drizzling, unlike in comic books where it was perpetually sunny, but the cliché was laughable. Only Phil wasn’t laughing, because he was the only superhero in the area.  
  
He took a deep breath and set off at a jog in the direction of the thief. Once he was close enough to have a clear line of sight, he stared at the thief’s behind until he stopped, turned, and started walking back to Phil. Oh god, he had a _beard_. This would not end well.  
  
“You stole that handbag and, uh, you have to return it,” he said, though the second half of the sentence was more of a mutter as he stepped backwards, almost tripping over himself. “And then I’ll have to arrest you.”  
  
“You can arrest me all you like, Manman,” the man practically _purred,_  “I do _love_ wearing handcuffs.”  
  
“Just give me the purse,” he said, and the thief just handed it over. At least they were cooperative while they were coming onto him. He went to get his handcuffs, but there was nothing there. Bugger. “I’ve left me handcuffs at home! Bloody criminals getting in the way of a simple trip to the post office. Just…follow me to the station, would you?”  
  
Phil took the leer he got in return as an affirmative response. As he led the man to the police station (which, much to his dismay, was three blocks out of the way of his route to the post office), returning the purse on his way, he made a note to himself to stop using his powers on such ugly men. He had to look at them all the time to keep them, well, smitten, and they never seemed to be decent lookers.  
  
His phone rang, and he glanced quickly at the screen before answering. New Canton Super Department. Just his luck. “Hello?” he said, staring at the mole on the thief’s cheek.  
  
“Ah, yes, _hola_ , Philip. I have good news! The subcommittee I appointed two months ago has found you a sidekick.”  
  
“A sidekick? A…a subcommittee?”  
  
“Yes! We decided you were doing such a good job that we have found you a sidekick to assist you.”  
  
“That…”  
  
“Her name is Zoe Crick, alias Brainteaser, and she even has experience! I have arranged a meeting with her for you in twenty minutes.”  
  
“Esteban, I’m taking a thief to the station, and I was going to the post office—“  
  
“Ah, so you can be here in time for the meeting then! See you in twenty minutes, Philip.”  
  
He hung up, and Phil would have put his face in his hands had he not had to maintain his power over the man in front of him. Bloody hell.  


* * *

  
He arrived at the New Canton Super Division’s headquarters (an appropriated _castle_  — what were they thinking?) twenty-five minutes later, out of breath and not looking forward to meeting this Zoe Crick. He didn’t need a sidekick! If he was as good as Esteban claimed (which, okay, he wasn’t), then why did Esteban appoint a subcommittee to the task of finding him a sidekick? Was he not efficient enough? Sure, he could only help fight crime perpetrated by 49% of the population, but no one had complained before. He even had four letters from people showing their appreciation! Someone who got _fanmail_  must be doing a good job. He definitely didn’t need a sidekick.  
  
Esteban and Zoe were in what functioned as the lobby of New Canton Super Division. NCSD was in charge of the entire North West, and Phil knew this five-minute delay would make Esteban…not pleased with him.   
  
“Sorry, Esteban, the police refused to arrest him and I couldn’t get a bus down here,” he said, wheezing slightly.  
  
“You are here now. I will leave you with Zoe Crick then, as I have pressing matters to attend to.”  
  
And with that he left, and Phil was stuck with this short, blonde-haired woman who was looked at her nails with the most perfect facial representation of boredom with a shade of disdain that he’d ever seen.  
  
“I’m not your sidekick, by the way. I’m a super in my own right,” she said, and Phil had to look around to check she wasn’t talking to someone else.  
  
“Al—alright. I didn’t need a sidekick anyway. I was doing fine on me own.”  
  
“Really?” Her tone was still bored, but there was a smirk on her face that Phil didn’t like at all.  
  
“Yes really! I’ve even had people write to me to tell me how fine I was doing.”  
  
“I see. Look, I’m not your sidekick, but I have to be here, so is it true your power is just seducing men with a look? You don’t look very capable of that to me.”  
  
“Oi!” Phil said. “I’m perfectly capable of that! Not that, I mean, I’m straight, I just…yeah, that’s my power."  
  
“So, how do you get your…power?”  
  
Phil looked away and muttered, “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
Zoe pressed on anyway, and now she was _grinning_. Bugger. “Come on, tell me.”  
  
“It’s not cool enough! I mean, why couldn’t I have been bitten by a radioactive spider or something?”  
  
“Tell me or I’ll find out myself.”  
  
“Fine, fine. I used to work at a corner shop, and there was Mrs O'Grady who used to buy a pack of Marlboros every Saturday, and…and one day she thought I was checking a man out when in fact I was just wondering if he’d slipped a Twix into his pocket, and…”  
  
“And?”  
  
“And it turns out she was some sort of witch, and she cursed me! I mean, I’m sure she meant nicely. But it’s _horrible_. I never even saw her again — I got fired the next week. I kept accidentally making customers fancy me and it wasn’t my _fault._ I mean, where’s the clause in the Disability Discrimination Act for supers? We need protection too!”  
  
“I think you’ll find that in order to have a Discrimination Act you need to  be discriminated against. How do you accidentally make customers fancy you? Can you not turn it off?”  
  
“No, I…I have to look at someone like they’re, uh, like they’re pocketing a Twix.” He didn’t tell Zoe that that was just an extremely roundabout way of saying he had to stare at their arse. She didn’t need to know that at all.  
  
Zoe laughed even thought he didn’t mention it, and Phil felt his face heat up despite himself. “I kept doing it by accident. What’s _your_ power then, if you find mine so funny?"  
  
"You tried to recruit me as a sidekick and you don’t even know my superpower?"  
  
"Esteban isn’t very free with information."  
  
"Apart from my scathing wit? I have the power to control emotions. I could make you laugh right now."  
  
"You’re not that funny."  
  
"Why does Edward Woodward have so many Ds in his name?"  
  
"Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me."  
  
"Why does Edward Woodward have so many Ds in his name?"  
  
"I don’t know, why _does_ Edward Woodward have so many Ds in his name?”  
  
"Because otherwise he’d be Ewar Woowar."  
  
Phil didn’t laugh. He might have chuckled a bit, though. Just a little.  
  
"See! I made you laugh."  
  
“I thought you were a superhero! You can’t just go around telling bad jokes and call that a superpower, Zoe.”  
  
"That’s not using my superpower, that’s just a really good joke.”   
  
Phil huffed, frowning. “Well, if you’re not my sidekick, whatareyou?”  
  
“The person you call when you need saving? You can figure that out. I need to go to lunch, so see you. Or not. Not is an option.”  
  
She just _left_. Phil stared at her as she went, wanting to say something about how she wasn’t taking this superhero business seriously enough — he still hadn’t established if she really had any super powers — but he couldn’t find the right words.  
  
When he left five minutes later, he got as far as the gate before someone knocked him very hard on the head and the world went black.  


* * *

  
When he woke up, he had the worst headache he had ever had (worse even than the time at university he’d been challenged to a drinking game involving tequila) and he was lying on a sofa, which he almost fell off. “Shit!” he said as he scrambled backwards, both at the near miss and the throbbing in his skull.  
  
“Ah, you’re awake,” a voice said above him, and he looked up to see two women standing above him. The dark-haired one continued speaking. “Philip Cheeseman, we need you to defeat Professor Van Ark. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”  
  
“Sorry?” he said, blinking. His head hurt far too much for conversation. “Professor who? And who are you? Where am I? Why did you knock me out?”  
  
“It seemed like the most efficient course of action,” the blonde one said as if she knocked people out all the time. She had the look of someone who did, actually, and Phil wished he were a more well-known superhero so people would come looking for him. The only one who would notice he was kidnapped and taken to a mysterious location with mysterious, slightly evil-looking people would be his mum when he didn’t come home for Sunday dinner.  
  
“You do not need to know our names. You can call me the Major and this is Eight. We’ll return you to your home once we are done here, so there is no need for concern. Professor Van Ark is a villain who has the power to control the undead, and we think—“  
  
“Control the undead?” Phil repeated, sitting up. A wave of pain and nausea forced him to close his eyes, and he opened them to find Eight was rolling her eyes. “Why haven’t I heard of him, then?”  
  
“He’s only been operating in Matlock, so nobody cares,” Eight said.   
  
“Ah.” That explained…rather a lot, actually.  
  
“However,” the Major said, “we have got word that he’s expanding his operations and possibly developing a way to infect the whole of Britain and turn them into the undead. He must be stopped, and you need to do it.”  
  
“But…” Phil wished he could wrap his head around all this, but his thoughts were sluggish from the blow to the head. “Surely there are…more suitable heroes. What about Stretchman?”  
  
Eight muttered something he couldn’t catch involving the words ‘Simon' and ‘arsehole'; The Major simply said, “Stretchman is not suitable for this mission.”  
  
Phil got the idea they had a list and were going through it. He was very sure he wasn’t at the top.  
  
“How many supers did you kidnap before me?”  
  
“Don’t be so melodramatic, it wasn’t kidnapping. We’ve asked seven supers before you.”  
  
Definitely not at the top of the list.  
  
“If seven others have failed, why do you think I’ll succeed?”  
  
“What choice do we have?” Eight said.  
  
“You can manipulate him into obeying what you say through your powers, correct?” the Major asked him, ignoring Eight’s comment.  
  
“Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent — I can’t get him to do anything really ridiculous, though,” Phil said. He hadn’t really tested it that far, but he’d had one or two nasty incidents with harder criminals who had been harder to control than others. Since his power was more making men smitten and willing to do anything that would further their chances of getting in his pants, it depended on what they were willing to do for love. Sometimes the answer to that question was ‘not much’, but it was always _something_.   
  
“That is enough. You need to get into Van Ark’s compound, get him under your power, make sure he’s not armed, then lead him outside. We have a contact inside who can help you by disabling the security measures, but she won’t be able to do much else. We will take it from there.”  
  
“Will you kill him?”  
  
“You need not be concerned with what happens to him afterwards,” the Major said, and Phil took that as a yes.  
  
“I suppose I don’t have a choice but to do what you say, do I?”  
  
“Not really, no,” Eight said.  
  
He sighed. Why did these things happen to him?  
  
“Fine, then. But if I have to catch the train to Matlock, you’re paying for it.”  
  
“You can go in our helicopter,” the Major said. Bleeding hell, Phil thought, this was out of his league. He dealt with little old ladies and rescuing kittens from trees. Not shady people with codenames and helicopters at their disposal.  
  
“What about my sidekick?” he asked.  
  
“You have a sidekick?”  
  
“Well, uh, she’s not technically my sidekick, but she sort of is. She says she’s not, but I think Esteban would get suspicious if she didn’t come along.”  
  
“You cannot tell your manager about this mission.”  
  
“He’ll know. He knows everything. I won’t tell him, though, does that help?”  
  
“Who is your sidekick?”  
  
“Zoe Crick, I mean — uh, Brainteaser.”  
  
The Major and Eight exchanged a look, but Phil had no idea what it meant.  
  
“We’ve had our eye on her for some time. She may accompany you. We will take you home now, and contact you when arrangements are finalised for the mission.”  
  
Phil nodded (and then regretted it, wincing in pain) because he had no other option and followed Eight and the Major through a series of corridors that ensured he was very, very lost before they reached a door that opened into a garage. He was directed to get in the back of the car and when they exited the garage he discovered the windows were tinted so he couldn’t see anything. They were certainly paranoid about keeping their location a secret, for good guys — or were they bad guys? Phil really wasn’t sure.  
  
When the car stopped, Eight handed him a box of Panadol before telling him to get out. How kind.  


* * *

  
“Controls the undead,” Zoe said, and he couldn’t even call it a _question_. “Are you sure they haven’t just had a look at the people of Matlock and made a mistake?”  
  
“They’re willing to fly us there in a helicopter. They kidnapped me! We’ve got to do what they say.”  
  
“I don’t — _you_  do.”  
  
“Fine, I do, but you said yourself, Esteban expects you to be my sidekick. Come on, it’s better than the crimes we get around here. Most of them involve old ladies or petty theft.”  
  
“Yours might, but I get to go to Manchester sometimes.”  
  
“Oooh, I get to go to Manchester,” he repeated in a falsetto. “Are there supervillains in Manchester?”  
  
“The Man City coach,” Zoe said. “He’s obviously a supervillain.”  
  
“Look, Esteban will find out I’m doing this and he’ll expect you to go. Are you coming with me or not?”  
  
“I suppose I will,” Zoe said. “I’ll swoop in and save you when you’ve screwed up.”  
  
Despite the assurance he would have Zoe backing him up, Phil was not at all confident he would succeed when the phone call (and the helicopter) came two days later. The Major brief him and Zoe while Eight few the helicopter. She gave them a map of Van Ark’s compound and told them about the security measures that their contact (“Paula”) had disabled, just in case.   
  
And then they dropped Phil and Zoe off a safe distance from the compound and they were on their own, though Phil knew that they would follow him and Zoe to the gate so they could watch for when he brought Van Ark out. Would they shoot him right then? He was too afraid to ask.  
  
“So, the plan is we sneak in, then we go up these stairs, and turn right, and that’s where Van Ark should be working,” Phil said, more to reassure himself than to inform Zoe of the plan she already knew. “There aren’t that many guards, apparently, only a few outside, and all the cameras are off.”  
  
“I know,” Zoe said, and Phil’s face heated up.  
  
“Okay, I just wanted to make sure we both had the same plan before we went in.”  
  
“Just get on with it,” she said, and Phil crept forward, peeking at the gate from behind the hedge.  
  
The gate was open, so they crept inside, ready to get any guard that noticed them under control before they attacked them. There was only one that was a problem, though, and Zoe calmed him down before he actually hurt one of them. She _did_  have super powers, if the way the guard’s shoulders relaxed was any indication.  
  
Phil thought that was suspiciously easy, but they weren’t incinerated when they stepped inside, so it wasn’t a trick. It was just….a supervillain. They never learnt.  
  
The compound was all white, very clean as if it wasn’t used. Phil was glad they had a map, because although the doors each had labels (“Lab 004”, “Broom Closet”, etc.), everything looked the same and the compound looked _huge_. Before they could get to the staircase, a scientist (not Van Ark — it was a blonde woman, not the silver-haired hunk they’d been shown a photo of) opened a door on their left. Phil froze, hoping he wouldn’t be noticeable if he wasn’t moving. Unsurprisingly, that’s not how it worked.   
  
The woman looked at them for a moment, taking in their brightly-coloured superhero costumes (what was with that? shouldn’t supers have something that blended in more? Phil had asked when Esteban had given him his, but Esteban had just told him it was tradition) for a moment before speaking. “Are you with the Major?” she asked in a whisper even though there was no one else around.  
  
“Yes,” Phil whispered back, feeling silly.  
  
“I’m Paula,” she said. “No need to use your powers on me, I’m on your side. Van Ark’s up the stairs there, on your right.”  
  
“I _know_ ,” Zoe said.  
  
“Please kill him. He’s…he’s got me captive. He injected me with his serum and if I leave I’ll turn, and if I betray him he’ll…” She paused, and Phil just wanted to move on, but it was rude to leave in the middle of a side character pouring their heart out. He’d read enough comic books to know that. “…he said he’d make me murder my girlfriend. Maxine’s done nothing wrong, please, I just want him to stop — I know I’ve done — done some bad things, and if he faces court I will too, but you have to succeed, _please._ ”  
  
Phil was not at all comfortable with this display of emotion, but he tried to think about what Antman would do and patted the woman on the shoulder gingerly. “We’ll, uh, try our best,” he said. If she started crying, he was going to make a dash to the staircase, WWAMD be damned.   
  
“Paula, here’s my phone — SuperLem’s in the contacts, text him and he’ll make sure nothing bad happens to Maxine,” Zoe said, holding out a battered Nokia. Paula smiled gratefully, and Phil silently fumed. He was the one who was meant to comfort the damsel! And why did she have _SuperLem_ in her contacts? Bloody SuperLem. He made spandex look _good_. Always stole the girl, always the hero of the day, even when someone else did all the hard slog! He wasn’t even _here_  and Phil bet he would get a write-up in the paper tomorrow.  
  
“Thank you,” Paula said. “Now go, quickly, you don’t want to hang around here too long.”  
  
They escaped without Phil having a weeping damsel cling to him, which was really the best outcome for everyone, especially the damsel. Up the stairs, turn right — to a door with no label. The handle was much more ornate than any of the others they’d passed, though, so it seemed like the door they were looking for. Phil glanced at Zoe, Zoe nodded towards the door, and he turned the handle slowly, thanking all the gods he could think of that it didn’t squeak.  
  
Van Ark was nowhere to be seen when they first entered the lab, but as soon as they made their way towards the centre of the room, the chair on a platform in front of them swivelled to reveal a man who looked oddly like Gary Oldman with — was that a cat on his lap? Phil’s question was answered when the white cat leapt off, made a menacing face, and trotted off out of sight. Well.  
  
“Manman and Brainteaser,” he said, holding his hand for a moment as if to stroke a cat, before realising the cat had buggered off and settling his arms on the armrests instead. “I have been watching you since your arrival.” When Phil opened his mouth to protest that Paula had turned off all the cameras, he continued, “You see, my lab has a most excellent view of the entrance. I expect you’ll have found a way to turn off the cameras, but no matter, you cannot turn off  _me_.” He stood with a smirk, and Phil wondered why he couldn’t move. He didn’t even need to move, he just needed to stare at Van Ark’s bum. Instead, he found himself mesmerised by the way his hands moved as he spoke. “You know, you think that I’m an evil man, but that’s simply not true. I’m working to eradicate death forever — what’s so evil about that? Sure, perhaps my means to the end aren’t always _admirable_ , but sacrifices must be made. The undead are just an unfortunate…mistake, a halfway point in my death eradication treatment. You have been fed lies, Manman and Brainteaser — you have been told that I am the villain of this story, but what do you know of the Major? Anything? Do you know who she works for? Why was she so desperate to conceal her location — she _did_  conceal her locations, didn’t she? — and use a codename if she had nothing to hide? Who’s her current sidekick? Eight, I think. Do you know anything about _her_?”  
  
Phil was silent, because perhaps — perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps the threat was not in this room, but waiting outside the gates for Phil to deliver this man straight to them.  
  
“What do you mean, eradicate death?” he said.  
  
“Why, my boy, I mean I will end death forever! When I perfect my immortality treatment, people will heal from any injury; they will never die of old age. There will be nothing to fear ever again. The Major — she wishes to keep this a secret. She has her own goals. Perhaps before you agreed to take me out, you should have researched your employer.”  
  
“Don’t listen to him,” Zoe said, grabbing Phil’s arm and jerking him out of whatever trance he was in. “You heard Paula downstairs! He’s threatening to murder her girlfriend!”  
  
“ _I_ wouldn’t murder dear Maxine,” Van Ark protested. “Besides, Maxine will not come to harm as long as Paula cooperates. It’s so hard to find a competent scientist these days and I would _so_  hate to lose her.”  
  
That sounded evil to Phil. But the Major and Eight — had they really been good? They had hit him over the head so hard there was still a lump three days later! And they’d told him _nothing_  about themselves. Besides, eradicating death sounded like something a good guy would do. The undead thing was a bit shady, but _no death forever_. That sounded really, really cool.  
  
“Phil, are you hearing what he’s saying? He created zombies. Actual, literal zombies, if he’s not just using obscure slang for the normal occupants of Matlock, which is possible. And think about what would happen if he eliminated death! Has no one _read_   _The Trouble with Lichen_? Just do your thing, Phil.”  
  
“Why don’t you do yours?”  
  
“I can’t help! I mean, I can manipulate emotions, so if he were angry I could stop him actually attacking us, but look at him, he’s calm as anything. Seduce him and we can get out of here.”  
  
“Do we know that the Major and Eight are really good guys though?”  
  
Zoe gave him a look that he had previously only seen on his mother, and he shivered involuntarily. “Phil. You know what? Maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re evil too. But this guy has _zombies_. Think about how long you’d last in a zombie apocalypse. Now think about how long you’d last in a zombie apocalypse where you keep accidentally seducing the zombies. Just shut up and do what we came for.”  
  
He couldn’t argue there, so he took a breath and, well, stared at Van Ark’s groin. He could tell he’d succeeded by the way Van Ark’s posture shifted slightly, and he started moving forward, towards the steps that led down from the platform. Phil started backing away, because that just looked _predatory_ , but he didn’t look behind him and knocked over a shelf of syringes, scattering them all over the floor. Van Ark didn’t seem bothered by this development, a slightly dreamy look in his eyes as he said, “Oh, Manman, how would you like to be with me forever? Death won’t even part u—“  
  
He was cut off by the first step, which he apparently hadn’t accounted for. The fall didn’t even break anything important, much to Phil’s dismay, and he thought it would just slow down Van Ark’s advance. The way he screamed as he finally came to a stop, though, said otherwise, and Phil saw there was a syringe half-full of an orange liquid with its needle embedded in Van Ark’s arm. Van Ark returned to himself since Phil was distracted, but it couldn’t help him — he yelled for Phil to help him, but the yells became moans halfway through. His skin greyed before their eyes. Phil was rooted to the spot, unable to decide what to do.  
  
Paula ran towards Van Ark from the open door, and Phil watched her as she took a hardback tome on infectious diseases to Van Ark’s skull over and over. Van Ark stopped moving. Phil wanted to be sick.  
  
“Tha—thank you,” Paula said, staring at the bloody book as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it now it had served her purpose. She dropped it to the floor and wiped her bloody hands on her labcoat. “I know how to give myself treatments, and now no one can control me like he did. You’ve saved me, and you’ve saved all of us — you’re a hero, Manman.”  
  
“You were the one who bashed his head in,” Phil pointed out, but she waved it off.   
  
“I couldn’t have done it if it weren’t for you. And you, I suppose,” she said, nodding at Zoe. Zoe was transfixed by Van Ark’s body and didn’t see.  
  
“I suppose we…do we just leave him there?” he asked.  
  
Paula thought for a moment, then said, “We have methods to dispose of bodies here. Leave him with me.”  
  
So Phil did, because all he wanted right them was a very strong cup of tea and the crossword.  
  
He saw the Major and Eight on the way out, told them how Van Ark was how dead, and to talk to Paula about the body. He didn’t expect payment (superhero-ing was supposed to be its own reward, or something, but he still had a job at a shop to pay his electricity bill), but the Major handed both him and Zoe a wad of cash each. Before he could thank her, she’d gone into the compound, and on the way home he bought himself a custard scroll.  


* * *

  
The news came a week later. He had had roughly twenty cups of tea since Van Ark’s compound; saved three old ladies; seduced passersby to rescue two cats stuck in trees; and seduced a man so he would stop sexually harassing a woman in line at the post office. It was a nice day — the sun was out, he had nowhere to go, and his phone was silent.  
  
It was too nice a day.  
  
He had the news on in the background — perhaps he had been watching a documentary and then left the television on, he couldn’t remember. He was stuck on the sudoku and he looked up to see a familiar face on the screen.  
  
“A new villain known only as the Major has made herself known in the Midlands. She appears to be able to control people using a series of tones. Reports of zombies are unconfirmed, but those in the region, particularly the East Midlands, should be wary.”  
  
Oh, shit.


End file.
